The Complete Poems

by Jonathan Swift, Pat Rogers (Editor)

Numerous poems reflecting the satire and humanity of Swift's prose

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Irish Literature, 18th Century, Fiction

960 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1720

About the author

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".
Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian".

Reviews

[V Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonathan Swift is known these days for his satire Gulliver's Travels (which is not quite a novel). But he considered himself a poet and the vast majority of his vast body of work is poetry. All of it is written in iambic tetrameter with end rhyme. This strict form is the same as the heroic couplets favored by Pope and Dryden the main poets of the British Neo-classicism, except each line has eight syllables instead of ten. So Swift's lines are even stricter and harder to write. But they're swifter to read and sound like children's poetry when read aloud. That's not bad, but modern readers may find it sounds very gimmicky. Here's the first few lines of "Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727" as an example:

This day, whate'er the Fates decree, (the apostrophe takes out a syallable from the word 'whatever' so that it forms an iamb)
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.

The main point of Swift's poems is to say things cleverly and musically in iambs with end rhyme. A lot of his poems observe a situation and find the humor in it like ("A Description of a City Shower".), roast people ("ON THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHEL"), or reflect about his life ("Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D."). Swift is a funny man, and his poems are supposed to be funny, witty, clever, and mostly light-hearted. He tries to instructs, shame, and entertain in perfectly constructed couplets. He is one of the old-school political humorists and the best.

But Swift's cleverest, funniest, and most touching poems reflect on his own mortality. Two of the best in this collection are:

Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah! Proper poetry with rhymes and metre and structure. These few poems are a fine complement to Swift's prose offerings. Fun to read, and full of fun.

[Connor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the most part I preferred the notes on the poems more than the poems themselves. I liked getting a glimpse into the friendships and enmities of this guy who lived more than 250 years ago. And I can see how the rhymes and satire he used are clever. They just weren't as interesting to me as the way he and his poet friends would get into little one-upmanship contests, sending rhyming riddles whizzing back and forth to each other (complete with little notes about how little time it had taken to compose this particular entry). Or the controversies and arrests related to the publishing of particular poems. Or even the complicated process this editor, and various editors previously, have gone through to try to figure out whether a particular poem was actually written by Swift, or not. It's all this stuff that surrounds the poems that seem more interesting to me. Perhaps I would have preferred a book on the Life and Times of..., instead.

[Liam Guilar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swift's diction , syntax and control of rhythm make for a clear, precise and very different 'poetry' to what most people today think of as Poetry. I don't think one could make an argument that he was a great poet, but his writing is always a fine antidote to modern slush.
(The prose even more so. Man knew how to write a sentence.)

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction says that this collection is not what you think about as important or impressive poetry, but is an interesting look at the author of Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal from a different angle. One reads the poems, and one agrees.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

GREAT to write about, not so great to read.